Book group meeting Wednesday 23rd November at the “Old Punchbowl Inn” in Warwick.

The book we were discussing at this meeting is “The Book of Human Skin” which definitely divided the group into two clear camps. Some people found the subject matter and the main character so repulsive that they felt they could not carry on reading. Those who finished the book found it fascinating and thoroughly enjoyed it. Quite a few of the group had not quite finished the book, but the period is fascinating, characters cleverly drawn, with the main, evil character being about the most repulsive person imaginable, and there is also a touch of humour to lighten even the most grotesque passages

“The Book of Human Skin” is a large volume with many pages of villainy writ upon it. There are people who are a disease, you know. 13 May, 1784, Venice: Minguillo Fasan, heir to the decaying, gothic Palazzo Espagnol, is born. Yet Minguillo is no ordinary child: he is strange, devious and all those who come near him are fearful. Twelve years later Minguillo is faced with an unexpected threat to his inheritance: a newborn sister, Marcella. His untempered jealousy will condemn his sister to a series of fates as a cripple, a madwoman and a nun. But in his insatiable quest to destroy her, he may have underestimated his sister’s ferocious determination, and her unlikely allies who will go to extraordinary lengths to save her…”

Despite the divisions, most of the group would recommend this book to a friend…..

There will be no meeting in December, so the next meeting is on Wednesday 18^th January at 6.00pm at the Puchbowl Inn in Warwick. We will be discussing a recommendation by Maureen: “The Missing” by Tim Gautreaux isbn 9780340977958. Set in Louisiana and featuring a slow trip up the Mississippi, this is the story of a kidnapped child and the man trying to find her. ‘Gautreaux writes with sustained grace and creates memorable characters . . . What really sets ‘The Missing’ apart, though, is his remarkable ability to realise the period . . . a rare and rather uncanny achievement: a novel about the South in the early Twenties that reads as though it was actually written there and then’ (John Dugdale, Literary Review )

‘Full of vivid evocations of the sights, sounds and smells of the South. As Simoneaux pursues his morally driven detective mission the scent of the steaming mud of the cypress swamps and the sound of 1920s New Orleans jazz rise off the page’ (Claire Prentice, Scotsman )